Aunis

Aunis

(ōnēs`), small region and former province, W France, on the Atlantic coast. It is now part of the Charente-Maritime and Deux-Sèvres depts. and includes the islands of Ré and Oléron. La Rochelle, the historic capital and one of the leading ports of the region, and Rochefort are the chief cities. A part of Aquitaine, it was recovered from England in 1373 and incorporated into the French crown lands.

Stated succinctly, seigneurial justice was slow, expensive, and therefore often inaccessible to rural inhabitants of Aunis and Saintonge.

According to the cahiers, the slowness of justice caused by royal civil and criminal procedure and the proliferation of petty seigneurial jurisdictions was aggravating enough for the denizens of rural Aunis and Saintonge.

Indeed, the near-universal dissatisfaction among rural dwellers with chicanery is the dominant theme concerning justice that one can extract from the cahiers of Aunis and Saintonge.

To the inhabitants of rural Aunis and Saintonge prior to 1789, the purpose of civil justice was only too clear.

However residents of provinces on the French mid-Atlantic coast (Normandy, Poitou, Aunis, Saintonge, and Angoumois) manifested exceptional dread of priestly hexes that rendered new grooms impotent and new households discordant.

And around La Rochelle, in the provinces of Aunis and Saintonge, it was the bride herself who was expected to precede her future husband toward the altar, kneel first for the benediction, and quickly slip a corner of her richly embroidered matrimonial apron over the altar steps upon which her betrothed could then place his knees.

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